Ink'd
by ohbernthal
Summary: I didn't think I wanted to find you until the day you were just out of my reach. I suppose the saying is true; Our siblings push buttons that cast us in roles we felt sure we had let go of long ago - the baby, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the avoider. /HIATUS.
1. Did It Take Long To Find Me?

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

**_ A/N_:**Alrighty everyone, here is my newest story! I just adore my OCs in this one, and I really hope you all grow to love them as well. A far warning to everyone is that the rating is for mention of drug abuse, alcohol use, swearing and some minor mentions of sex in later chapters. Please enjoy, and leave a review!

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><p>There was something oddly poetic about having a two mile radius in a city like New York. In one aspect, it was a beautiful testament to solitude. When hundreds of thousands of people were rushing and running about your city, trying in vain to make this appointment and the next, scheduled ten minutes apart and ten city blocks from one another, you could lazily meander down the same streets and paths you took every day, knowing exactly how many feet you walked from one corner to the next. On the other hand, it was a terror worthy of the literary talents of Stephen King. The rest of the world got to live their lives. They got to try the coffee at the shop five blocks away instead of just two. They got to shop at the stores twenty minutes from their homes, not just fifteen. They drove up to Jersey or down to Florida and could schedule cruises to the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Alaska. They could go down to Long Island for a day on Montauk Point, or drive upstate to enjoy the fresh air and get back in touch with nature. Best of all, they could do all of them without a heavy hunk of plastic chafing their legs.<p>

Neal Caffrey was rounding the same corner for the fourth time. It was a Saturday morning and the sun was high in the sky, warming the already-bustling city of New York. In such a city, all those walking the streets were so invested in themselves that nobody noticed the man aimlessly wandering a two mile path. He noticed all of them, however, because when you only had two miles to walk and already know all the stores and shops and restaurants nestled into that little radius, the most entertaining thing to do was people watch.

Neal noticed the business man with a fresh-from-the-cleaner's suit, his newspaper tucked under his arm and his cell phone stapled to his ear, completely oblivious of the his coffee cup leaking the drink down his suit's lapel. He noticed the mother, clearly a tourist, with a toddler in her arms and another tugging at the hem of her peasant skirt as she pointed out the ten thousandth pigeon hopping along the sidewalk. He noticed the jogger zig-zagging through the crowd, her ponytail bouncing and her lips moving soundlessly over the lyrics of the song assumed she was hearing from her headphones. He noticed the teenage boy with a book open in his hands, narrowly avoiding a collision with the jogging girl and the peasant-skirted woman's screaming child. And, most importantly, he noticed the young brunette with torn-up jeans and streaks of pink buried in her braid. He noticed the particular swing of her hips when she walked, the way she tapped her fingers against her leg as though there were some invisible miniature drum there that only she could hear. He noticed the way she kept tucking wisps of hair neatly behind her ears, the way she quickened her pace when she crossed the street, the way she slammed her feet against the pavement when she returned to the sidewalk.

Everything about that slim brunette seemed oddly familiar; her walk, her posture, her demeanor in itself. The large tattoo of a raven- or was it a crow?- on her upper left arm certainly threw him off, but the toned canvas the portrait laid on looked about right. The beat up canvas bag that hung off her shoulder and the buttons that lined the strap were both trigging their own sets of memories.

Neal was so caught up in his remembrances that he hardly noticed he was following the girl, turning where she turned, weaving through the sea of faces to keep up with her. It was only when a gentle beeping from his least favorite fashion accessory sounded that he was even aware of how far she'd taken him.

"Damn," Neal muttered, glancing down as though to curse at his anklet. His eyes shot back up in time to see the brunette cross the street again, tossing a glance over her shoulder quickly before focusing ahead again. He watched her swing open the glass door of a shop on the other side of the street, pulling it closed behind her and disappearing inside. Neal shifted his weight from one foot to the other as though the change might make it easier for him to see the name of the establishment.

_Regal Ink _was painted in black and red lettering across the front window of the shop. Neal noted the name before turning on his heel and hurrying back home, hoping that Peter had not been alerted of his quick slip outside his radius.

Two miles was truly a poetic distance in this lovely New York City.

"Morning," Peter greeted as he walked past Neal's desk in the bullpen. Neal jumped, his hand flying to the mouse of his computer so that he could quickly close the page he had been sifting through. Peter paused, giving him a strange look to which Neal responded with only a smile and a hello. "You okay?"

"Fine," Neal replied. "You just surprised me."

"Okay," Peter said slowly. He began to walk away, but paused for a moment and glanced back. "What were you looking at?"

"Just doing a little bit of research," Neal said, content with the fact that, technically, he wasn't lying to his friend. Peter thought for a moment, then decided it was best not to ask any additional questions and continued his path to his office. In his absence, Neal visible relaxed and let out a sigh of relief as he opened his browser history and clicked the latest link.

Regal Ink, Neal found out, was a newer tattoo shop. It had been in business for just a little over five years and was founded by a man named Dan Byrne, who, instead of featuring his own picture on the website, preferred a website banner based around a photograph of his arms crossed over his chest, the focus on the picture lying on his two full tattoo sleeves.

Neal searched through the profiles of all the other artists at the shop. There was Michael Hagan, Caleb Clark, Mitch Young, and Severen Moore. The only female artist on the list was Lucinda "Lucie" Martinez, who, with her sun kissed skin and wavy raven locks, was definitely not the girl Neal was looking for.

"So she's not an artist," Neal mused under his breath. He knew that there was a possibility that she did not actually work at the shop. He'd seen a tattoo on her arm, and therefore knew that she might have been going in just to have another done. Disappointed, Neal returned to the main page, scrolling up and down and looking for some link that might lead him to his girl. Finding nothing, Neal moved the curser, readying to close out of the screen, when he saw some fine print at the bottom of the page, the words just a shade lighter than that of the blood red background. _Webpage design by Lily C_.

Bingo.

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><p>Working for the FBI had its perks. Sure, there was the bland-tasting coffee, which always wound up too cold too fast, and the suits that pulled in all the wrong places, and the ties that would never stay tied, and the late hours and early mornings and the boring, humdrum, tedious paperwork that took hours upon hours to finally complete. But there were also the resources. The databases that held countless names, the searches he could do to find people in those databases and see a list of both alleged and confirmed crimes they've committed. Whenever one Neal Caffrey poked his head into Peter's office, this was the perk that Peter loved the most.<p>

Neal often found places outside of his radius that he liked to go. There were plenty of art museums and special exhibits that he had asked to go to, and although the higher ups didn't like to extend the dog's leash, it was doable so long as there was an agent there to hold it. It was not uncommon for Neal to come and ask to be escorted to some special event. Those events normally were not tattoo parlors, and Neal was normally not as secretive about them as he was about Regal Ink.

First, Neal had asked, "What do you have going on this weekend?"

This was Peter's first clue the ex-convict was up to something. When he answered that he had no plans, Neal asked if Peter might be able to escort him somewhere just outside his radius.

"How far outside?" Peter had questioned.

"Just a block," Neal replied. Peter asked where he wanted to go. Neal said "a shop". Peter asked what kind. Neal skirted around it for a good minute before blurting, "It's called Regal Ink."

Peter said he would think about, and Neal left for the bullpen. So now, sitting in his glass-walled office with his chilly coffee and a stack of untouched paperwork at his side, Peter was thinking about it. He thought about it, and he thought about the FBI's criminal database. He thought about regular search engines. He thought about how the two could be used together.

When he typed Regal Ink into the Google search bar, Peter was only half-expecting a tattoo shop to show up on the top of his results. After all, the name sounded like such a place, but Neal Caffrey? At a tattoo parlor? Wanting to break up his perfect skin with a permanent portrait in metal-based ink? It was preposterous. Unless, of course, one of the artists listed had a criminal past that overlapped with Neal's. Peter opened the database on his computer and started typing in names.

Yeah, working for the FBI definitely had its perks.

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><p>"So what is it that I'm looking for?" Mozzie was standing with his hands gripping the back of the chair across from Neal's seat. The younger man glanced up, shaking his head.<p>

"Her name is Lily," he said. "I don't really want to go into detail until I know that it's her."

"Well, you are going to have to tell me who she is if I'm supposed to find out," Mozzie replied. He drew the chair back and lowered himself into it. Folding his hands on the table, he leaned forward and raised his eyebrows at his friend. "So?"

Neal rose from his seat without saying a word and crossed the room. He pulled a book off of a shelf, flipped through it and then returned it. He took another one and breezed through the pages before returning it as well. The third book he took he opened to the middle and removed something from between the pages. He set the book back in its home before going back to the table and slapping the thin envelope he'd taken in front of Mozzie. Mozzie lifted the envelope off the table and eyed Neal carefully. Neal nodded once and Mozzie lifted the flap of the envelope and let its contents spill before him.

There were three photographs there, all old Polaroid's with yellowing edges. The first showed a little boy, not more than three years old, with Neal's sparkling eyes and then-unruly brown locks. He was bent beside a baby carrier, and the child of about one, perhaps less, inside was staring up at him with stormy gray eyes. The only indicator of the baby's gender was the pink polka-dotted bow resting on her dark hair. The second picture was of a thirteen year old Neal and a girl of about ten standing on either side of a dolphin-shaped fountain. The last picture was just of the girl. She looked about thirteen and was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a guitar in her hands. With the way that her eyes were turned down, scanning over what he thought to be a page of music on the floor in front of her, Mozzie assumed she did not know her picture was being taken.

"Is this…?"

"That's her." Neal then pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table to Mozzie. On it was a rough sketch of a raven in flight, a few stray feathers dancing beneath its wings. "I also saw a tattoo that looked something like this on her arm."

"I'll see what I can do."

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><p>The fact that Neal was looking into a tattoo parlor was stuck at the forefront of Peter's mind. He had run every name of every artist at the shop through the FBI's database and had found absolute zero matches. This, of course, came as both a comfort and an irritation- a comfort because he now knew Neal was not looking into someone from his criminal past, but an irritation because this was the first time in months that Peter had absolutely no clue as to what the young man was planning. With a thousand questions in his mind, and Neal pressing for an answer, Peter decided it best to check out Regal Ink on his own.<p>

The inside of the shop was filled with the buzz of needles and the heavy scent of ink lingered in the air. A great round desk, painted a scarlet red, sat at the front, with some red plastic chairs lining the closest walls, only two of which were currently occupied. Beyond the desk Peter could see various tattooing stations. At the moment, two of the artists were at work, another was sketching at their personal desk, and another was lazily flipping through a magazine. There was a slender but tough-looking man standing behind the big red counter. He was wearing a button down shirt the sleeves of which he'd rolled up to show off his tattooed arms. He had glanced up briefly when the little bell above the door jingled at Peter's arrival.

"Just a second," the man had said, nodding towards the plastic chairs. Peter settled into one and watched as the man rifled through various papers, stuffing them into folders and envelopes which, Peter assumed, he then crammed into drawers unseen by the customers. Moments later, a very familiar little man came hurrying into the shop. The man at the counter glanced up again. "Just a second."

"I'm here to see Lily," the little man blurted. The tattooed man quirked an eyebrow, but didn't ask any questions. Instead, he glanced back to the shop.

"Hey, Sev," he called, and the artist that was sketching glanced up. "You seen Caffrey?"

"She's in the back," Peter heard the artist, Sev, reply.

"Go get her," the man behind the desk ordered. "Someone's here for her."

Peter straightened in his seat. He'd heard, and said, the name Caffrey so many times he could give it its own unique meaning- 'pain-in-the-ass', 'trouble', 'unpredictable'. He had never, though, heard the name thrown at anyone other than Neal. He looked over the little man waiting at the counter. What was Mozzie here for?

Peter was just rising out of his chair when Sev returned with a young woman following behind him. Sev returned to his station while the woman, pushing brown and pink hair behind her ear, continued to the counter.

"You rang," she said, coming to stand beside who Peter assumed to be her boss. The man motioned towards Mozzie.

"He wanted you," he said. "I have to go finish some work. Pop in before you leave."

"You got it, Dan," she replied. Dan disappeared into the back of the shop and the woman leaned forward over the counter. "What can I do for you?"

"You're Lily, right?" Mozzie asked. The woman raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," she drawled. She seemed as though she was going to say more but she caught sight of Peter. She tilted her head towards him. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked. Mozzie turned around, eyes widening when he saw the agent standing mere feet away from him.

"Uh, no," Peter stammered. He glanced between Lily and Mozzie before getting an idea. "I actually needed to talk to him."

"Okay," Lily said slowly. "Are two here together or something?"

"Or something," Peter replied. He gave Mozzie a look at would accept no arguments. Mozzie looked back and forth between the agent and Lily before settled his gaze on her.

"How much does a tattoo here cost?" he asked. Lily shrugged.

"Depends on the size, where it is, how much coloring- if any-, lettering and the like," Lily rattled. Mozzie nodded, taking this in, and then pointed to the raven tattoo on the girl's left arm.

"What about something like that?" he asked. Lily turned so the picture was clearly visible. The bird was flying without a destination, some feathers falling from its wing and over the scripted words- _fly me home_.

"This one was about sixty because of the all detailing," she explained. Mozzie nodded.

"Thank you," he replied. Lily smiled and nodded. Mozzie reached in his pocket and pulled out something folded many times. He slipped it across the desk before turning and walking out, Peter close behind him.

"You've got five minutes to explain what just happened in there," Peter said almost as soon as the door of the parlor closed behind them.

"Neal asked me to come," Mozzie stated simply.

"He's been asking me if he could come," Peter said. "What's this all about? The girl?"

"Yes," Mozzie said.

"Who is she?" Peter demanded.

"You'll have to ask Neal," Mozzie replied.

"Who is she?" Peter repeated.

"Look, I could tell you," Mozzie said. "But you should really find out from him."

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><p>The double finger point was famous in the FBI White Collar Division. Neal had had it directed at him multiple times. Half of them had been from Hughes, especially on the days when Neal had gotten particularly out of line. Another half came from Peter on almost a weekly basis. Still another handful came from agents here and there who just wanted to poke fun at how closely the higher ups watched him. But today's was from Peter. And it was serious.<p>

Neal followed a good few feet behind Peter after the double finger point had been delivered. When they arrived in Peter's office the older man motioned for Neal to take a seat, and so he did. Peter settled himself behind his desk and folded his hands in front of him, eyeing Neal from the short distance between them.

"So," Neal said, dragging the 'o'. Peter took a breath and then threw Neal a question.

"Who's Lily?"


	2. Remember, My Friend

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

**_A/N: _**Thank you all so much for your reviews! Here's chapter 2 :) Just so you all know, I've got a vacation, prom, graduation, dance rehearsals, recital and a baseball pre-game show with my studio all fast approaching, so I might not be able to update as fast as I want to, but if you want to keep up with how story's progressing you can follow me on Twitter at xdivinerose. Thank you all again for your support! Please read and review.

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><p>"So, do you want to do anything tonight?" Severen asked, draping his arm over Lily's shoulders as they crossed the street together. She pushed her dark bangs, tinted lightly with pink, out of her face.<p>

"Maybe," she said.

"Movie?" Severen asked. "Or maybe just dinner? We could go to that little Italian place you like. You know, the one that plays the same Dean Martin songs over and over again?"

"Yeah," Lily replied. Severen frowned.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"What?" Lily glanced up at him for the first time since they'd left the shop. "Oh. I'm fine."

"You seem a little distracted."

"I guess," she shrugged. Lily fished in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out what looked like a Polaroid picture, a strip of loose-leaf paper wrapped around it to block out the image.

"What's that?"

"This guy came into the shop today," she explained. "Asked me about getting a tattoo, and then this other guy wanted to talk to him. The two of them hurried out, but the first one slipped these onto the counter before he left."

Lily unfolded the loose-leaf and scanned it quickly before allowing Severen to have a look. He narrowed his dark eyes at it, his brows furrowing together. 'DSVIV SZEV CLF YVVM?' was written in tidy handwriting in heavy black ink across the paper. He attempted to sound out the words but when he failed he looked to Lily for an explanation.

"It's in code," she replied, and then she handed him the Polaroid. It was photo of herself when she was only thirteen. She was not looking at the camera for she was much too engrossed in the mess of sheet music spread on the floor in front of her. Her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail and her fingers were playing across the fret board of a rather battered-looking acoustic guitar.

"Is this supposed to explain it?" Severen asked as the two opened the doors of their apartment building and headed for the stairs. Lily shook her head.

"It's an old picture," she said. "Before…everything."

"Oh," Severen replied. On the sixth floor, they exited the stairwell. He handed her back the code, but kept examining the photograph. "So what's the note all about?"

"It's an old code that me and my brother made up when we were kids," she explained as Severen dug a key out of his pocket and opened the door of their apartment. A little black blur streaked towards them and Lily scooped it up and settled it in the crook of her arm as she glided into the room, dropping the note on the counter before beginning to dig in one of the drawers. Impatient meows drifted from the black lump she was carrying. "Oh, come off it, Ludwig," Lily muttered, stroking the cat's head quickly before producing a pen from the drawer and dropping the now-purring animal on the counter. She slid the note closer to herself, scribbled something down, and then slipped it across the counter to Severen.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

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><p>"Neal?" Peter pressed. The younger man had been sitting in silence for the past five minutes, his eyes wide and trained on the papers scattered about the agent's desk. "Who is Lily?"<p>

Neal swallowed, slowly turning his eyes up to meet Peter's. "How do you know about her?"

"I met her today," Peter replied.

"At…?" Peter nodded. "So that's where you went."

"Yes." They were both quiet for a few moments and then Peter repeated, "Who is Lily?"

Neal sighed heavily. "She's my sister."

"Sister," Peter repeated and Neal nodded. "I've been through stacks and stacks of documents all about you and I've never seen any mention of a sister."

"You also didn't see anything about my father, too, if you recall," Neal replied. "That big block before I turned 18? She's in there."

"Why's that?" Neal shook his head.

"We stopped talking. She was around fourteen and she got mixed up in some bad stuff."

"What kind of stuff? Robbing art museums? Forging important bonds?"

"None of that," Neal replied, waving his hand. "She's not like that."

"Then what?" Peter continued. "Did she rob anything?"

"Lily's not a thief," Neal said firmly.

"So what did she do?" Peter asked. Neal shook his head.

"I don't really want to talk about this right now," he said, beginning to stand. Peter stretched out his hand to stop him.

"Neal," he said, but Neal turned around and put his hand on the door.

"I really don't want to talk about it," he repeated.

"Neal, please," Peter said. "Whatever it is, it can't really be that bad, can it?"

"That bad?" Neal almost laughed. "Peter. Lily's an addict."

And then Neal Caffrey took his journey back through the bullpen, agents throwing odd glances between the former convict and the stunned agent who knew everything about him.

Almost everything.

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><p>Peter Burke normally did not spend his Saturdays looking for the long lost sisters of his close friends, but when he had found Lily Caffrey's Facebook page the previous night, he started combing it for clues about her. Lily herself kept most of her information private. The only things Peter could see were her profile picture- a photo of Lily sitting at a piano, her hair draped over one shoulder and her fingers frozen on the keys as she posed- and her basic information.<p>

Born on April 21. Lives in New York, New York. Works at Regal Ink Tattoo Shop. In a relationship with Severen Moore.

With Elizabeth's help, Peter navigated to Severen's page. He, too, had the same basic information stamped beside a picture of himself with his arm around Lily. However, he also gave access to his pictures. Peter clicked on the profile picture and when it blew up on his screen he glanced at the background. The two were standing together outside a great brick building, a slightly blurred sign in the background. The caption Severen had put beneath read "Moving in to the new apartment!"

Beneath the photo was comment from somebody named Mitch Young, who simply said- "call when you get settled"

Underneath Mitch's comment was none other than Lily Caffrey. "Sixth floor, apartment 604. Come visit us!"

After squinting at the sign in the background of the photograph for some time, Peter scrawled down the address on a loose sheet of paper.

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><p>Lily rarely had a quiet Saturday morning, and so when the opportunity for one arose she liked to take the time to enjoy it. This was why she had spent an extra half hour in bed, reading by the slivers of light of the long-awoken sun that crept through the blinds of her bedroom. She got up and took a rather long shower and threw her hair into a messy bun that she knew wouldn't dry until that night before going into the kitchen and fixing herself a breakfast of Cheerios and chai tea.<p>

Two of her three cats, the black one called Ludwig and the red shorthair she'd named Sebastian, danced around her feet as she moved back and forth in the kitchen and followed her to the couch. She plopped down and allowed Ludwig to settle himself in her lap while Sebastian curled around her feet. The third cat, a heavy gray one with fur that dragged along the floor when he walked, lay sprawled on the windowsill and only moved when there was a knock on the door.

"Who the hell could that be?" Lily muttered, placing her cereal beside her still-steaming cup of tea on the coffee table before following the gray mass of fur to the door. "Wolfgang, for the love of God, calm down!"

She plucked the cat off the floor and balanced him in the crook of one arm as she used the other to swing open the door.

"Lily Caffrey?" the man on the other side asked. She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?" she said. The man fumbled in his jacket pocket and produced a badge from it. She eyed it carefully as he spoke.

"I'm Agent Peter Burke," he introduced. "Do you think we could talk for a few minutes?"

"What's this about?" Lily asked. Her blue eyes widened in the next moment. "Is it Neal? Did something happen to him?"

"I work with your brother," Peter replied calmly.

"Work with…"

"If you let me come in, I'll be able to explain."

"Um…sure," Lily replied. She opened the door wider and allowed Peter to step inside. Once she'd shut the door behind her she seemed to ease slightly. "Let me take your coat," she offered. Peter shook his head.

"I'll take care of it," he replied, slipping off his jacket and pretending he didn't notice the pinstripe fedora perched on the wooden coat rack as he hung it up.

"Can I get you anything?" Lily asked as she led him further into the apartment. "We don't have any coffee or anything, but we've got tons of teas. Pretty much any kind you can think of."

"I'm fine, thanks." Lily showed him to the living room. The two sat on the couch together in uncomfortable silence. Lily had set Wolfgang on her lap and was running her fingers along his back as Peter sat glancing all about the room. "You said you worked with my brother."

"Yes, I did," Peter replied.

"Is that why you came to the shop yesterday?" Peter nodded slowly.

"Sort of," he replied. "Neal's looking for you."

Wolfgang hopped out of Lily's lap as though on cue, padding towards the door and leaving his owner with one hand raised in the air, still attempting to stroke an animal that was no longer there. She glanced down and then quickly snapped her arm towards her body, folding it like a broken wing.

"Looking for me?"

"Yes."

"How…Um, How did he….find me?" Lily asked timidly. Peter shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm not sure. He just came in one day asking if he could check out Regal Ink. I didn't even know what it was until he asked."

"Oh," Lily replied, her voice dropping like a pebble to the ground. She shifted uncomfortably where she sat, her eyes trailing down to the couch cushions, to the floor, and then back to meet Peter's gaze. Her eyes were the same glistening blue as Neal's, and yet there was some darker quality to them that Peter could not place. It was a piercing, unsettling, and somehow jaded sort of glimmer somewhere at the back of them, a quality that Peter felt she was too young to have. She sighed, the smallest sound that blended with the breeze that whistled through the open window. "Uh…How exactly does Neal work with you?"

"It's long story," Peter said.

"But if he's working with you then that means he's out of prison, right? And…And he's doing something good now, right? It's a good thing?"

"Yes," Peter said calmly. "It's good thing. To make a long story short, he was released into the custody of the FBI for the next four years. He wears a tracking anklet so we can keep an eye on him, which keeps him on a two mile leash. That's why he couldn't just go into Regal Ink and see you himself. I'd really like to tell you the whole story, but I think Neal would rather tell you himself."

"I'm surprised he even wants to see me at all," Lily scoffed, more to herself than to Peter, but a pink blush rose to her cheeks and she apologized all the same. "Our recent history hasn't been so great," she explained.

"I understand," Peter said, even though he didn't. "If you have the time, I would like to set up a meeting between you and Neal."

"Sure," Lily said after a pause. "There's a little café across the street from the shop, The Garden Rose or something pretty and floral like that. If it's in his radius, I could meet Neal there on my break on say…Monday?"

"I'll work it out," Peter replied, and for the first time since he arrived, he saw a real smile creep across Lily's face.


	3. Say That Everything Is Over

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

**_A/N**: **_**Sorry for taking forever! Since the last chapter I've started college, got a job at Petsmart, quit my job at Petsmart, got a job at my university's library, got a job as a dance teacher, worked by butt off in classes, academic and dance, started a workout regimen with my friend and so on and so forth. But you probably don't care about that. So on with the chapter!

-Side note: NaNo and GothNo are fast approaching, and will consume my time for October and November. I will still try to work on the story, but I can't make any promises on how often it will be updated. For updates, follow me on Twitter (I recently changed my Twitter username).

twitter(dot)com/fancyfedoras

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><p>"Do you think he wants something?" Severen asked. He was sketching an angel for a patron that was gabbing with her friends at the front of the shop, boasting about how well she could handle the pain of tattooing and showing off the last piece she'd gotten- a small lotus flower stamped on her wrist.<p>

"What would he want from me?" Lily countered, arranging the little containers of ink at Severen's station and rummaging through a draw for fresh, sanitized needles.

"Money?" Severen suggested.

"He'd know better than to think I had money."

"Then just help, maybe?"

"Help with what?" Lily sank onto the chair that was meant for the bouncy blonde costumer up front. She tugged at the elastic band around her wrist, a nervous habit she'd had for years. "Neal hasn't spoken to me since I was fourteen. He hasn't made any move to contact me, nothing at all. He moved out, and that was that. The only reason I even knew he went to jail was because of a news broadcast. I didn't even know he got out!"

She sighed heavily, rolling her head towards the ceiling. She took a few deep breaths before looking back to Severen. His pencil had slipped from his grasp and was rolling back and forth over the great feathered wing of the angel. Severen himself had turned himself to face his girlfriend, his brown eyes glistening.

"Maybe he just wants to make peace."

Lily shrugged. "Maybe."

She hopped down from the chair and offered a small smile, running her hand through Severen's hair. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her in a little closer.

"Do you want me to go to lunch with you?" he offered.

"That'd be nice." She leaned in to kiss him, but out of the corner her of her eye she spotted Dan emerging from his office in the back, scanning the room, and was reminded of his workplace public display of affection rule. "You ready for her?" she asked, pulling away and nodding towards the bottle-blonde beauty.

"Send her back."

* * *

><p>The Garden Rose was a small and quaint café conveniently located across the street from Regal Ink. It had, as its name suggested, roses everywhere- in bouquets on the tables, drawn in pink chalk on specials board outside, laced around the legs of the outdoor chairs. Looking around, Peter felt almost intimidated by the feminine quality of the place. In the seat next to him, Neal seemed tense as well, although something about the rigidity of his consultant made Peter believe that it wasn't the flowers that made him nervous.<p>

"Maybe she isn't coming," Neal suggested, glancing across the street for the umpteenth time.

"Give her time," Peter replied. "We got here early anyway."

Neal was quiet for a few moments, and Peter pretended he didn't see the younger man turn his wrist over every few moments to see that, no matter how many times he looked, it was still going to be 1:16 for the next thirty seconds.

"I thought you wanted to see her," Peter said. Neal shrugged.

"I thought so, too."

An uncomfortable silence settled over them, broken only by the waitress named Donna asking if they'd like anything to drink. They ordered iced teas and then went back to their conversation.

"Maybe she forgot," Neal suggested. Peter shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but when he started to say his consultant's name, a different voice came out.

"Neal," it said, and Peter whirled around to see Lily fast approaching, her hand glued to that of her boyfriend's, whose name had slipped Peter's mind in the moment.

"Lily," Neal replied, quiet, slowly rising from his seat. The siblings stood still for a moment, neither sure of what to do, until Neal held out his hand and Lily took it, shaking it halfway until she decided the gesture was too simple, too proper, and pulled her brother into a hug. As the two Caffreys embraced, Peter stood and offered his hand to the girl's boyfriend.

"Peter Burke," he introduced.

"Severen Moore," Severen replied, shaking the older man's hand. "I guess you've already met Lily."

"Hm?" Lily said, suddenly back in reality after releasing Neal. "Oh, yeah. Hi, Agent Burke."

"Peter."

"Oh, sure. Sorry. Peter." She smiled to him, and there was the awkward silence again, settling like a blanket over the four.

"Well," Neal said slowly, desperate to end the silence. "Would you two like to sit?"

"Sit?" Lily said. "Sit. Yes. Sit. Sitting would be good. Let's um…Let's sit."

Severen nudged her with his elbow, halting her babble long enough for the two of them to take seats across from Peter and Neal and order their iced teas. All the while Neal was trying not to look at the sister who had been wasting away the last time he saw her. She was still thin, but as deathly so as she had been. She had a healthier glow to her skin. There weren't bruises dotting her arms anymore, and she could speak without sounding like she was falling asleep in front of her.

And then there were the things that were the same. They way she twisted her hair when she was nervous, the ways her eyes darted back and forth like she thought she was going to be caught stealing something. Her nails, chewed down the quick, covered up by dull blue polish. The torn up jeans and the old canvas bag covered in buttons of bands and witty sayings.

"So," Lily said. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh…You know," Neal shrugged.

"Breaking out of prison?"

"Once."

"Working with the FBI?"

"So I don't have to break out again." Peter shot Neal a warning look, and the young con artist gave a sad, apologetic glance. "What have you been doing?"

"Me?" Neal nodded. Lily sighed. "A lot, I guess."

"Are you…"

"No," she almost snapped. She caught herself quickly, shaking her head. "I mean…No. I'm not."

"At all?"

"At all." Neal eyed her carefully. "What, you don't believe me?"

Neal felt her getting hostile. Like a wildcat, her hair was rising, her claws were ready. "Yeah, I guess I believe you."

"You guess?"

"I believe you, ok?" Neal sighed. Lily nodded carefully, and there was the silence again. It seemed like a lurking predator, waiting to wash over them at any moment. Lily was staring at the table, until finally she looked up, her blue eyes latching onto her brother's.

"Neal, I-"

"What can I get you kids?" the waitress, Donna, interrupted. Lily sank back in her seat, listening to all the men take their orders. "And you for you, Miss?"

"Just a Greek salad," she said softly.

"Ok, you're food will be out ASAP!" Donna said with far too much pep. She flitted to the next table. When she came back with the food, everyone ate quietly, a few pleasantries passed, until finally the table was cleared and the four were standing up and readying to leave. Peter said a quick goodbye to Severen, and then to Lily, and told Neal he was going to hail a taxi. Severen made an excuse about accidently leaving something at the shop, leaving the Caffrey siblings alone for the first time in more than five years.

"Neal?" Lily asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"I really did stop."

"How long?"

"Going on three years."

"That's…" Neal paused, looking his little sister over. "That's really great, Lily. I'm really…really proud of you."

"Thanks." Lily glanced at the sidewalk. "It's because of you, you know."

"What is?" Lily gestured to herself.

"This."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that..." She shook her head. "I found out that you-"

"Neal!" They both glanced down the block, seeing Peter waiting, holding open a cab door. "Let's go! Lunch break ended ten minutes ago!"

"I'm coming!" Neal called. "I guess have to go."

"Yeah, yeah," Lily waved it off. "Go. We'll uh….I'll talk to you later."

"You promise?"

"Give me your phone." Neal handed over the Blackberry Peter had allowed him to purchase shortly after his 2 mile leash had been attached. Lily fumbled with the buttons for a few moments before handing it back. "Call me later," she said simply.

"I….okay."

"Promise?" She held out her pinky finger to him, earning a smirk.

"Promise," he said, linking his finger with hers.

"Okay," Lily smiled. The released her brother's finger and slipped into the New York City crowd.


	4. Try to Forgive, Teach Me to Live

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

**_A/N**:**_** Long time no see!

College has been kicking my butt, which means that my writing sessions have been more of spurts that are few and far between. I also got a scholarship at my dance studio for a solo by one of my instructors, and we're rehearsing for our annual Christmas charity show. I'm working on switching my major, and final exams are coming up soon. I hope to put out at least two chapters during my winter break.

Please read and review!

For any updates on this story, or if you just want to hear about my majectcal life, follow-  
>twitter(dot)comfancyfedoras

* * *

><p>Blue eyes, dull and worn, slowly opened to the thin strips of sunlight reaching into the room. She groaned loudly and pushed herself up, her skin pulling against the dried blood that stuck like a leech to her arm. She nearly tripped over a forgotten syringe when she stood up, but managed to catch herself on the wall and continued to stumble her way into the bathroom, where she rinsed the blood off, brushed her teeth and grabbed a lighter from the medicine cabinet (of the haze of yesterday the one thing she remembered was that her old one was a dud). She went back into her room, slipping a pack of cigarettes from her beat-up canvas bag, dropping one into her palm.<p>

She held her new fag between her teeth while she rummaged even more, finding her phone in the avalanche of sheet music, Ziploc bags and broken guitar strings. As she lit and dragged away at her cigarette she scrolled through the previous night's missed calls.

HOME 10:22PM  
>HOME 10:30PM<br>MOM 11:15PM  
>HOME 11:46PM<br>UNKNOWN 12:27AM  
>HOME 8:03AM<br>UNKNOWN 9:54AM

Lily blew a puff of smoke into the receiver before clearing her voicemail and throwing the phone back into the conglomerate of stuff that seemed to all congeal together inside her bag.

A knock at the door reminded Lily of the headache that she thought she'd banished the previous night. She groaned a curse, but offered a weak "Come in," to whoever it was.

"Hey," came a calm voice, much less weary than hers. Lily looked up, finding a young man in torn jeans and a black buttoned shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, well-muscled arms, looking back at her. His unruly hair and glistening hazel eyes were cute. But it would be nicer if she could remember who he was.

"Hey," she replied. She knew she'd been at a club last night, with strobe lights and spotlights and other sorts of bright mechanics that could cause seizures. She was there with a friend, who she'd met at a bar only hours before, who promised her it was the hottest spot in town. She remembered that she had been drunk. Had she blacked out? Maybe. Did it matter? Probably. But Lily didn't really care.

Lily pressed her cigarette into the ash try on the windowsill, watching the dying embers flicker shades of red and orange until the turned completely gray. It wasn't until she turned back around that she realized the man was still talking to her.

"Sorry," she said softly. "Zoned out."

"Whatever," said the hazel eyed man. He shrugged his shoulders. "Come down if you want."

"Just a minute," she said. He eyed her carefully, so she quickly explained "Have to get dressed."

When he was gone, Lily pushed herself off the strange bed. The mattress was lumpy in some spots and hard in others. The tattered comforter was on the floor, and Lily assumed that she had kicked it off at some point in her sleep. The press of a wire against her breast made her aware that she had never taken her bra off, and nobody had unhooked it for her. She looked around the room again, wondering how she'd gotten there, how she knew where the bathroom was when she'd woken up, and who the hell that man who'd just come in was.

She felt sick to her stomach, probably due to the cocktail of drugs and booze she was sure she'd downed the night before. In her state of confusion and sickness a single work bubbled on her tongue.

"Fuck."

* * *

><p>Lily stared intently at her phone.<p>

It had been a good four hours since she and Severen had taken their lunch break together at the Garden Rose, four hours since she'd programmed her number into her older brother's phone, and still he hadn't called.

"Relax, Lil," Severen said for what had to be the ten thousandth time. "He'll call."

"Yeah, I know," Lily sighed.

"He did have to go back to work," Severen reminded her. "Maybe he's having a busy day."

"Right," Lily nodded. She grabbed her phone, clicking a button so that the screen lit up. There was one text message from Lucie reminding her reschedule a client for tomorrow afternoon and no missed calls or voicemails. She locked the front screen and then threw the phone into her bag, which was lying underneath Severen's drawing desk.

"Hey," Severen said, a new tone in his voice to catch Lily's attention. "I don't have another appointment today, do I?"

"No, you don't," Lily confirmed, remembering the last client she'd led from his station just over ten minutes ago.

"And Mike and Mitch can take over any walk-ins tonight," Severen continued, pointing towards the other two artists who were hunched over intricate sketches.

"So," Lily replied, dragging out the 'o' as long as she could.

"So, we could work on your piece," Severen concluded. A smile crept across Lily's lips.

"I'll go get ready," she said, pulling out her bag.

"I'll set up," Severen replied. He waited until Lily disappeared in the back to start preparing his station. Lily emerged a few moments later, her shirt replaced by a powder blue sports bra she'd pulled over her regular underwire bra. She sat herself on the table and swung her legs up, lying down with her arms stretched above her head.

Along the left side of her ribcage the beginnings of a cherry tree branch bloomed against her skin. Severen snapped on his gloves and checked the few budding flowers he'd drawn on her the last time they'd worked on the piece. It had to be at least two months in the making at this point, with the tattoo starting just below her breast, more towards her back, and wrapping around the front, currently reaching towards the bottom of her ribcage. The goal was to get it down to her hip, with some flowers fully bloomed and some merely buds, some branches reaching to her back and others tamed along her ribs.

Severen quickly cleaned and shaved the skin beneath the latest edition of Lily's tattoo. He grabbed the stencil, which he had been sketching early that day, Lily looming over his shoulder as he did, pointing out imperfections and making tiny suggestions. Eyeing her body carefully, Severen pressed the stencil on the wet skin.

"Want to check it in the mirror?" Severen asked, pulling the paper away and leaving the temporary lines on her.

"I trust you," Lily said quickly. Severen nodded at her answer and spun towards his station, pulling out a line of ink caps. He also fumbled in a small drawer for needles and pulled out his tattoo gun. Once he was all set up, he looked back to Lily.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," she replied, adjusting herself in the chair. Severen began on the outline, glancing up to watch her face every now and then as he worked. Lily was the type who loved tattoos but hated to get them. He remembered the day she first came in to start on the grand piano stretched across her back. Her plan, as she had told Severen that day, was to just get the whole thing over with that day. He'd gotten everything ready, and worked on the outline over an hour. When he told her he was finished was that part and that she could take a break if she'd like, she'd quickly checked the design in the mirror and asked him what day she could come in to finish it.

It took her three months until the project was finished.

A project that took most people a long day, or two appointments at the most, had taken Lily Caffrey months to complete.

Not that Severen was complaining, of course. If she hadn't come in so many times, Severen never would have gotten that first date with her, which he'd asked for the third time she'd come in. They worked on the dull scarlet of the roses that grew off line vines around the piano. He also wouldn't have gotten the second date, which he asked for after the first. If Lily hadn't taken so long to complete her tattoo, she wouldn't mean so much to him today.

Sometimes, Severen wondered if that was her goal all along.

Two hours later, Severen had outlined the remainder of Lily's tattoo. It stretched all the way to her hip, just above the bone. When they started the cherry blossom, Lily had requesting the design touch her hip, but after seeing her wince each time the needle danced over her ribs and all the swears she hissed under her breath, thinking he couldn't hear her, Severen decided not to go that far with it. She rose carefully to check it in the mirror next to Severen's station.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"Would you be mad if I said I hated it?" Lily asked, the glint of a smile in her blue eyes.

"Lily," Severen growled cautiously, and she couldn't help but burst into a laugh.

"I'm kidding!" she giggled, and she plopped herself back onto the chair. "Bandage me up so we can go home."

"As you wish," Severen replied with a smile. Lily laughed more, and Severn waited until she calmed down to tape the bandages to her side. When he'd finished, Lily went into the break room to grab hers and Severen's things. They said their goodbyes to Mitch, who was in charge of closing up that night, and headed out.

"Shit," Lily muttered nearly the second they stepped onto the sidewalk.

"Lily, was it really that bad?" Severen teased. He was laughing until he shot a glance behind him and saw that Lily was looking rather disappointedly at her cell phone. "He called?"

"I think so," she said. "It's an unknown number."

She pressed a few buttons, held the phone to her ear and before the automated voice finished asking for her password she punched it in.

_You have…one new message. First message_, the robotic voice announced.

"Hey, Lily. It's Neal. I just got home, I thought I'd try to call you. I think we should set up a meeting somewhere, if we can. We probably should talk Caffrey to Caffrey. So, just call me back whenever you'd like. I'm in for the night. Okay. Bye, Lil."

Neal's voice was then drowned out by a series of numbers and commands that Lily completely ignored. She hung up the phone and navigated to her missed calls, finding the unknown number and redialed.

"It was him," she told Severen, and as they walked she listened to the ringing on the other end. Severen put his arm around her, navigating the streets for the both of them. He heard the beep of the voice box and Lily's disappointed sigh that followed almost immediately.

"Hey Neal, it's Lily. I just got your message. Sorry I missed you. But I definitely agree. We do need to meet. I'm headed home now, so I guess if you want to try calling again you can. If not, hopefully we'll catch each other tomorrow. We do need to talk. Alright, Neal. I'll talk to you soon, I hope. Bye."

"What exactly do you agree to?" Severen asked as she shoved her phone in the pocket of her jeans.

"He said he wanted to meet up with me, just the two of us," she replied.

"Ah," as Severen's only reply as he opened the door to their apartment building. "Stairs or elevator?"

"The elevator got stuck this morning," she said.

"Stairs, then," Severen decided. They climbed the flights of stairs and Lily fished their apartment key out of her coat pocket. Ludwig rushed to meet them, Sebastian close behind. Lily picked up the black cat while Severen scooped up the red one and they both went into the bedroom. They set the felines on the bed, where Wolfgang was already perched happily, purring in satisfaction was the coupe walked in.

"What is it that you're purring about?" Lily asked him, stroking his head. "Would you like to eat? Is that it, buddy? You want some food, huh?"

Severen tore off his shirt as his girlfriend cooed over the pudgy gray cat. He replaced his jeans with pajama pants and turned around to find that Lily had stripped off her shirt. She was moving in a sort of pained way, the tattoo running along her left side sore. She tenderly removed her bra, her back turned to Severen as though he didn't already have every bit of her body memorized, and gently slipped a black tank top on. She turned back to Severen.

"Sev, would you mind getting the cats some food?" she asked.

"Not at all," he said, and while he completed the task Lily finished changing into her pajamas, exchanging her skinny jeans with a pair of gray sweats. She was already in bed, leaning more towards her right to take the pressure off the additions to her tattoo. Severen joined her, flicking off the lights as he crawled under the covers.

"Hey, Lil," he said after a long stretch of silence. Lily found his eyes in the darkness.

"Yeah?"

"This whole thing with your brother," he said carefully. Lily shifted, and Severen felt the mattress move beneath her weight.

"Yes?" Lily pressed.

"I just," Severen's words seemed to evaporate the minute he opened his mouth. "I hope it works out."

"Me too," Lily sighed heavily. They lay there in silence. After a few minutes, Severen leaned over and kissed her check. She sighed again, pressing herself further into the bed. "Me too."


	5. Phone Tag You Know I Hate

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

_**A/N: **_Well...This chapter is another filler, but with a surprise twist at the end! The story will be picking up soon, as finals are officially over on Tuesday. You all deserve cookies for sticking with me, to be perfectly honest. I really appreciate all of you and your great reviews!

And a bit of other news, I'm on the Tumblr machine now. Follow me and I'll follow you back!  
>iwearsillyhats(dot)tumblr(dot)com<p>

ON WITH THE STORY.

* * *

><p>Neal woke to a single ray of golden sunlight, the sole winner of the race through his blinds. He blinked slowly and pushed himself up, shaking his head and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. On his cell phone a little red light signaled that there were messages awaiting him, but in his state of half-consciousness Neal felt he wouldn't actually be able to understand any of them quite yet and settled on a hot shower instead. He emerged from the steaming bathroom feeling refreshed and ran a comb through his still-wet hair while tossing on a crisp, clean shirt and digging around in his wardrobe for a jacket that went well with it.<p>

When his jacket of choice was shrugged over his shoulders and his gray fedora was perched atop his head, Neal poured some of June's Italian roast into two to-go cups he'd produced from a package he'd bought at the corner store the previous night. Peter had been in a basically good mood lately. Neal figured a little bit of fine coffee would keep in such a state. Neal then rushed down the stairs, balancing the two cups in his hands while slipping his phone in his pocket. Peter was picking up today, as they had an early morning meeting with a suspect in their latest case. Neal could hear Peter honking outside the minute his foot hit the last step.

Neal had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as he bid a quick goodbye to June and ran out the door. He slipped into the passenger seat of the Taurus and shut the door swiftly behind him. Before Peter could utter any annoyed remark about how long he had been waiting outside his CI shoved a still steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee into his hand.

"Thanks," Peter said after a sip.

"Figured you'd need it," Neal smiled. He slipped his seatbelt into place and Peter drove off, pushing his coffee into a cup holder. Neal held his own, sipping periodically as he and Peter discussed the case. Neal had forgotten entirely about the messages on his phone until he felt the Blackberry vibrate in his pocket. He slipped it out, ready to answer until he got a warning look from the agent sitting next to him.

"You can call whoever that is back," Peter said. "We're here."

* * *

><p>"Hello?" Lily said into the receiver. "Yes, finally. Hugo, honey, it's Lily Caffrey from Regal Ink. I've been trying to catch you all morning. …Well, yeah, business is doing pretty well, but at the moment it could be better. …Yeah, it's the autoclave. …Well we've recently discovered that it is most definitely female. …Yes, yes…Yes, females are….Yeah, we're temperamental. Yeah, thanks for that, Hugo."<p>

Lily sighed heavily and rested her head on her hand as she listened to Hugo Coleman go on and on about his autoclave system and what guys he had install Regal Ink's and what model is was and so on and so forth. Finally, he paused for a breath, giving Lily the chance to jump into the conversation.

"Well, Hugo, I don't know a lot about autoclaves myself. I can turn it on and off and that's about as far as I go, but what I can tell you is that this one appears to be going through some sort of mid-life crisis and it would be really great if you could get some guys in here to look at it before everything goes to Hell and I wind up on the street beginning for dollars and muttering old stories about the nice tattoo shop I used to work at," she explained quickly. "Oh, honey, I know how you busy you are. …Yes, I know, I know. But Hugo, baby, listen to me right now, okay? I've got artists here you can't tattoo. They're all miserable, they don't know what to do with their lives and I've got a client coming in for an appointment in twenty minutes and if he doesn't get what he wants today I'm going to have to give his deposit back. … I know that's not you're problem, Hugo, but it's going to be if you don't get your ass down here ASAP."

At some point in her rant, Dan approached the desk. He raised an eyebrow to Lily, who simply shrugged to him and rolled her eyes, pointing towards the phone.

"Yeah, that time frame's not gonna work for me," Lily said into the phone. "Well, I've been to trying to call you for a while now, I've told you that, remember? We need somebody here, like, yesterday. …Yes. …Okay. You can do that? …Perfect, that's great Hugo! Alright, you have a good one, too. Okay. Bye."

Lily had to refrain herself from smashing the phone back into its cradle in the miniature fit of rage that always seemed to follow talked to Hugo Coleman. He was a talker, and didn't entirely know that the point of a business call was to be short, sweet and to the point. Once, after dealing with him for nearly two hours, Lily had asked Dan why the shop even did business with the man anyway. Dan's only response was the he was short on cash and the price was right.

"They'll be here in thirty minutes," Lily said. Dan slipped the office calendar from beneath her elbow.

"Our first client is here for Lucie in fifteen," he said.

"Then let us pray that Lucie can take her time drawing whatever that guy wants. I made the appointment, he seems like a guy that's into detail," Lily replied.

"You're an angel," Dan praised.

"Yeah, just don't mind the horns, they keep the shiny halo straight," she said. Dan laughed and clapped Lily on the back, receiving a grunt and a flinch due to hitting her on her newly tattooed side.

"Sorry about that," he replied and Lily simply shook her head. "How's that coming out, by the way?"

"So far, so good," she replied with a smile. "Just hurts like a bitch."

"Yeah," Dan drawled. "That happens."

And then, in a whirl, Lucie Martinez burst through the front doors.

"I have had one hell of a morning," she blurted, her words coated in a Puerto Rican accent. She threw a glance at the black-rimmed analog clock on the wall, "And it's only a quarter to eight. Lily, did you cancel my afternoon appointments?" Lucie flung her purse on the front desk as she slipped behind it.

"All cancelled," Lily promised.

"Thank God," Lucie sighed. She stripped off her denim jacket and tossed it over her bag as she pushed her dark hair out of her eyes. "My sisters are coming today. Their flight lands at one o'clock, and I want to get to the airport early so that I can make one of those big 'Welcome Home' signs to hold up when they walk through the gate."

"That sounds really nice, Luce," Lily smiled. "You guys have any plans?"

"Well, we're going to spend the afternoon putting away their things at my apartment, but tonight we're going to have some real fun," Lucie gushed, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh?"

"There's a new club that opened just a few blocks from here," Lucie explained. "I've heard that they some of the best salsa music in town!"

"Very nice," Lily replied.

"Oh, you're welcome to come if you'd like!" Lucie told her.

"I appreciate that, Luce, but I've already got plans for tonight," Lily lied.

"And what are they?" Lucie pressed.

"Sev and I have a very romantic evening planned," Lily replied.

"Oh la la," Lucie said. "Well, then I won't pry any further."

"I do appreciate that," said Lily.

"Don't we all," Dan interjected. He reached between the girls, grabbing Lucie's things off the counter and shoving them into her hands. "Have you clocked in yet?" he asked.

"Right, right," Lucie replied. She winked at Lily and then twirled around, making her way into the back. Dan then turned back to Lily.

"I've got to step out for a bit," he said. "Let me know when Hugo's guys come, and if they actually do anything."

"Will do," Lily replied.

* * *

><p>Neal tried to call Lily, but he got no answer.<p>

So he tried to call her again, and again there was no answer, so he left her another message and tucked his phone away in his pocket before settling in at his small desk in the bullpen. The meeting with their suspect had gone well that morning and Neal had been left with a bulky file on the case to sift through for the rest of the morning. Neal had opened the folder and sat there, staring at the words until they blurred and he had to blink his eyes again and again to focus once more on the task in front of him.

Maybe there really was something on Neal's mind that was distracting him. Maybe he was thinking about Lily, and whether or not either of them would ever win their game of phone tag. Maybe the thing that was tugging at his brain was the sight of her in the café yesterday with a healthy glow to her skin that he thought he'd never see again. Maybe he was thinking about their mother, and whether or not Lily was in contact with her. Maybe he was thinking of their father.

In truth, Neal Caffrey could have been thinking about a lot of things. But if he was good at anything in this world, it was lying. He could spin any tale and make it sound like truth. He could even tangle himself up in his own web, and at the moment that seemed like the smartest move.

So he lied to himself, swore to himself that there was nothing distracting him from the day's work.

And then his phone made a small sound in his pocket.

* * *

><p>"Hello?" Lily whispered. Technically, she wasn't supposed to be making any personal calls at the moment. She was supposed to be at the front desk staring at the doors, awaiting the arrival of Hugo's guys. She was supposed to be taking names as patrons walked in and asking them to please wait because they were having some problems with their equipment and couldn't tattoo just yet, but that their artists would be happy to sit with them and start their sketches while they waited, but Lily had easily conned Michael into doing that all for her while she stepped into the back (it turns out if you bribe Mike with free cake you get him to do pretty much anything).<p>

"Lily?" came the voice on the other end.

"Neal, finally," she sighed. "I thought we'd be stuck in a perpetual game of phone tag."

"Yeah, me too," Neal laughed. "But I'm actually at a work right now."

"I guess I caught you at a bad time, then," Lily replied. "For the best, I think. I only have a few minutes."

"Busy?"

"You're not the only one with a day job," she said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. "I'm supposed to be up front right, managed to slip away for a bit."

"So what did you want to talk about?" Neal asked. Lily opened her mouth to answer but a knock at the door silenced her.

"One second," she said instead and pressed the phone to her shoulder. "What, Michael?"

"Some guys are here, they're asking for you," he told her.

"Are they Hugo's?" she asked.

"Um…sure."

"Very helpful," Lily mumbled, pinched the bridge of her nose as she shook her head. She then looked back up to find that Michael was still standing in the door way, his dark bangs falling over his eyes, waiting expectantly. "Alright, stall for me, okay? I'll be there in a sec."

"Sure, Lil," Michael nodded, and like that he was gone. Lily replaced the phone to her ear.

"Sorry about that, but I have to go. I've got some guys here about an autoclave and I can't keep them waiting," she said to Neal.

"Sure, sure," he replied, trying to sound as though he knew exactly what she was talking about. "I've got some work to get back to anyway."

"Call me again," Lily prompted. "Tonight, if you can."

"Will do."

"Okay. Talk to you then," she said, clicking the phone off and tossing back into the side pocket of her canvas bag. _And so the phone tag continues, _she thought as she swung the door open and plastered on her best smile. "Ah, you're a vision," she said as she glided to the front of the shop, taking each of the men's hands. "I'm Lily."

She'd showed them to the machine and watched them poke and prod the small apparatus before deeming it irreparable. One man instructed the other to get a new one out of the van and in about an hour a new one was installed and working. It cost way too much money, so Lily paid it out of the shop's funds and hid the receipt under a stack of papers in one of the drawers so that Dan wouldn't have a heart attack just yet.

By the afternoon, when Dan had returned and Lucie had zipped out to meet her sisters at the airport and Lily was getting ready to go home for her lunch break, things had returned to normal. The artists were finally able to tattoo, and Lily had already scheduled and rescheduled a long list of appointments for the upcoming weeks. Dan hadn't found the receipt that Lily had stashed away, and she planned on keeping it that way for as long as she possibly could. Michael repeatedly reminded Lily that she owed him cake.

Lily had returned from lunch to find things completely normal again. Michael and Caleb were with clients, Mitch was sketching at his station and Dan was at the desk going over a drawing with an eighteen year old boy who, by the looks of it, was celebrating his birthday with his first ink. He had two buddies with him who were offering critique and suggestions, much to Dan's disapproval. Lily couldn't help but smirk at him when she setting behind the desk. The buzz of tattooing needles and the pounding of Motley Crue against the walls drilled out of her the thoughts of talking to Neal that night as she answered phones and made marks along the shop calendar and calling artists up when their next appointments arrived. She was so caught up in handing out aftercare sheets and setting up tattooing station and discarding used ink caps that she had actually almost forgotten about her phone date with her brother until she grabbed her things at the end of the night.

"Have a good one, Lil," Dan had said as he entered the back room. She had been hunched over her bag, scrolling through some old messages that had collected on her phone's memory storage through the night.

"What?" she said, looking up. "Oh, thanks. You too."

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Bright and early," she promised and he smiled, clapped her carefully on the back and left. Lily straightened, adjusting her bag on her shoulder in the way she felt out least likely to cause her new ink any pain. She said goodbye to Caleb, who had agreed to close up after he was done with his last client, and left through the front doors. The night was cool, but not yet cold. She could still bask in the warmth of the summer breeze, only slightly aware of the warning of fall swishing after it. The night was still young, and the lights of the city stifled the twinkling diamonds in the sky Lily was sure would have been visible anywhere else in the world.

She doubled her pace as she went home, anxious to fling her phone onto the coffee table and stare at it until her brother finally called. She was so wrapped up in getting home early that she failed to notice the heavy footsteps echoing hers on the block, the voice that kept calling her name, until she was forced to stop for traffic at the corner and wait to cross the street. Somebody grabbed her, and Lily gasped and turned around.

"Lily Caffrey!" the voice said, exasperated, and Lily felt anger and fear bubbling up inside her until she turned around to see the face the voice belonged to. Her expression changed to one of surprise, of disbelief.

"Max?" she asked, and the man with the dirty blonde hair and soft chocolate eyes smiled and nodded. "Max Forrester?"

"In the flesh," Max said, flashing a thousand-watt smile that said more than any words spoken. "Lily Caffrey," he repeated. "We meet again."


	6. Never Mind, Turn Back Time

**_Disclaimer: _**White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network. OCs are my own. Story is my own.

_**A/N: **_IT'S CHRISTMAS! I love Christmas. Right now, I'm watching A Christmas Story on loop and chilling out with a Santa hat in my room, but soon I will be downstairs in the kitchen making cookies and very possibly making mini doughnuts (my mom got me a mini doughnut maker for Christmas. my life is complete) for dinner at my grandparents! I've also got a White Collar Christmas Fic in the works, but it probably won't be finished until Little Christmas.

Anyway, I hope that you all have a happy, healthy, and safe holiday, and whatever it is you do celebrate I hope that you enjoy it with friends and family at your side! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and anything else that I may have forgotten! I'm sorry that this chapter isn't exactly happy and Christmas-y, but I hope that you enjoy in nonetheless!

I've left a list of the songs used in this story so far at the end (before I forget what they are!). :)

* * *

><p>The apartment was strangely quiet without Lily. Wolfgang was perched at his usual spot on the windowsill while Ludwig and Sebastian stationed themselves on the couch, right next to Severen. The only light in their small apartment came from the lamp on the small table next to the couch and from the soft glow of the television set. The volume was turned low on some reality show that Severen wasn't really watched as one hand stroked Sebastian's head and the other balanced a months-old copy of <em>Inked Magazine<em> that Lily had left on the coffee table, a few pages that she needed to finish dog-eared, although both she and Severen knew she would never get around to finally reading them.

The phone hadn't rung yet, and Severen didn't plan on it. He knew that when Lily worked closing she stayed later than she had to in order to get the shop ready for the next morning. Tonight would probably be more different, especially since they'd started accepting applications for new artists last week. Lily was in charge of arranging the interviews and she had quite the stack of applications to sort through. She'd brought a few of them home last night. They were still on the kitchen counter, so far undisturbed by the cats- so far.

When it got too late, Severen simply assumed that Lily had lost track of the time at the shop and was currently hailing a taxi so that she didn't have to walk home. He changed into sweatpants and an old white t-shirt and went to bed hoping that he'd feel her slip into bed beside him before he fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Max Forrester, of all people, was not the one that Lily would ever picture herself bumping into on the street, striking up a conversation with, and wind up heading to a bar with late at night when only the most miserable of people started filling up the bar scene to drink their sorrows away. But that is exactly what happened.<p>

Sitting across from her was Max himself, his hair shorter than she remembered and his dark eyes watching her carefully as she sipped from her glass. At first, she'd only ordered a soda. And then she ordered another, and when it came time to order a third she decided that a shot of rum wouldn't be too terrible to throw in. Just one, she swore to herself. After all, she hadn't had a drink in years, and technically she still shouldn't have a single drop, but Max had been allowing himself a couple of beers and the simple carbonation of the cola in her glass simply paled in comparison.

They hadn't really been talking about much, really. Max told her he was living in the Bronx- it wasn't the greatest place for him, but he was getting by. He had a steady job and a goldfish, and occasionally a girlfriend but none of them really stuck around too long. Lily told him about Regal Ink, and about Severen and so on. She left out the part about her long lost, recently found brother and his FBI gig. It didn't exactly scream "small talk".

"Sounds like you're doing good for yourself," Max applauded. Lily couldn't help but smile.

"Yeah, yeah everything's sort of just….falling into place, I guess," she replied. She was feeling tipsy, but didn't think that one more drink wouldn't hurt. She shifted in her seat when the bar tender placed another down on the table in front of her. She thanked him before turning back to Max. "It seems like you don't have it half bad either. You hear from anyone else?"

"Nah," Max shook his head, rubbing his hand against the back of neck. "No, none of 'em are really around anymore. You know…get out, move on."

"So everyone's gone, then," Lily assumed.

"Everyone but us." Max took another swig of his beer; Lily took a sip from her own drink. It was stronger than the last one that had been served. She couldn't remember asking for more alcohol. Maybe this should be the last drink. Had she said that before?

They talked idly again for quite some time, and it turned out that that stronger drink wasn't the last one. She had one more, and half another before she finally pushed it away. She was feeling much more than tipsy at that point, and Max seemed no better off than she was. The drunker they got the deeper their conversation went, and the longer the minute drug on, one melting into the next for an hour, or two, or three. They'd sailed far away from chit chat between old acquaintances and passed through the land of good old friends and were suddenly knee deep in the ocean of the past.

They were talking about the rehab center, the counselors and specialists there, the other residents. They talked about Sherri, who had been readmitted three times and left halfway through Max's residency. They talked about Adam, who had left just a week before Lily and was now the CEO of some major company that neither of them remembered the name of. They talked about Paul, the man who did all the room searches and would confiscate whatever lay in the nooks and crannies of everyone's space and then went to his office and used it himself.

And they talked about Miles.

God, did they talk about Miles.

"Do you think he's still here?" Max asked, swaying to one side, an effect of the alcohol creeping through him.

"What do you mean?" Lily slurred. Max pointed up.

"Do you think he's watching us?"

"I sure as hell hope not," Lily said quietly. She eyed her half finished rum and coke, feeling nauseous with only the thought of the hangover to come.

"You think he'd be disa…dis…." Max shook his head. "You think he'd be upset with us?"

"Yeah," Lily nodded. "Yeah, I really think he would."

"Lil, he-"

"Max," she stopped him, holding up her hand for emphasis. "How he died doesn't mean anything. He would have been proud of us, man. I mean, if he can see us now then he's probably been watching over us…..he's probably been here for a long time. If he can see us, he knows how…how far we've come."

"Yeah…" Max agreed, even though Lily could somehow feel that he'd hardly listened. She watched him carefully.

"Max?"

"Yeah, Lil?"

"Do you do this a lot?"

"Do what?" Lily gestured around her, catching the whole place in one motion. The bar tender was polishing classes behind the counter, a man was passed out in the corner, a woman sat at a barstool by herself, running her finger along the rim of her wine glass that she'd ordered a half hour ago and still hadn't touched. "Oh. Well. Uh…not normally. I don't think. Just, you know…when I need to uh…when I need to…"

"Do you think about him a lot?" Lily interjected. Max was stuck with his mouth open, moving over words that had evaporated once they hit the air. "Miles," Lily clarified quickly, before Max completely lost his thought.

"I don't know," Max replied, and then he took another sip of beer. Lily tilted her head.

"You…don't know your own thoughts?" she asked, half laughing, and Max laughed too, ever so slightly, shaking his head in a way that made his bangs fall over his eyes.

"I, uh…I have a lot of them, I guess," he said.

"Sure you do," Lily laughed, making Max smile.

"Well, I guess I do think about him….It's hard not to, you know," Max explained. Lily was suddenly very interested in the pattern in the wood of the table. She felt guilty, in a way, although it could have been the rum. She could blame it on the rum, couldn't she?

"Yeah," she replied in a near-whisper. A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't notice it until Max reached over to wipe it away. She glanced back up. "I miss him," she admitted, and another tear came.

"Yeah," Max said. He reached out further to take her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. "Me too."

* * *

><p>The first time Miles and Lily had ever talked had been on accident.<p>

Lily was in one of the wash rooms, sitting on a dryer that was conveniently placed under a ventilation shaft. She had a cigarette poised between her fingers and was blowing the smoke up towards the vent, erasing all evidence that it was ever there. Miles had stumbled in with a laundry basket in his arms. He had kicked the door open since he had no free hands and the thud of the door hitting against the wall startled Lily. She jumped, concealing the cigarette behind her back, but when she saw that it wasn't any counselor that had walked in she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Close the door," she said quickly and Miles hadn't asked any questions. He set his laundry on top of a washing machine took another long drag from the cigarette before dropping it the floor and crushing it with her sneaker.

"Sorry about that," Miles said, starting to throw t-shirts into the washing machine. Lily simply shrugged. Once the cigarette was completely burned out, she bent down to pick it up.

"No worries," she replied, grabbing an empty box of Bounce and shoving the cigarette inside. She slipped the lint trap out of the washing machine that her clothes were in and pressed the lint inside, concealing the cigarette thoroughly before folding it up and tossing it in the wastebasket. "I'm Lily, by the way.

"Miles," he replied, holding out his hand. She shook it before turning back to the wash, throwing her own load into a dryer. "How long have you been here?"

"Just about two weeks now." She said it as though she was estimating, but really she'd been counting the days. As of tomorrow, she would have been there for officially two weeks and one day. "You?"

"Just a few days," he replied.

"Oh," Lily said, nodding as she threw dyer sheets in with her load and shut it, turning the knobs and clicking the dryer on. "Well, if you need to know the lay of the land, I can help you out," she offered.

"No need," Miles shrugged. "I've been here before."

"Oh yeah?" Lily asked. "When?"

"About four months ago, I think," he replied. "Relapsed."

"Shit," Lily replied.

"Yeah, that's what it feels like," he said. "Mr. Brownstone," he explained. "What were you on?"

"Smack," she said simply. "The withdrawal's hell."

"Yeah, it really is," Miles nodded. "How're you doing?"

"Fine, I guess," she said. She paused for a moment, her back to him. "It sucks ass."

"What does?"

"Being here," she said. "Being off heroin."

"It gets better," Miles promised. Lily glanced back to him.

"Yeah," she scoffed. "Until you relapse, right?"

"Hey, if you don't, then this whole thing is worth it," he replied. Lily snorted. "What? Maybe I'm not the best example. But I know some guys that got out of here the last time, and they're still clean, from what I see. Nikki Sixx is clean."

"Nikki Sixx got out of the hospital and shot up," Lily retorted. "Do your research before you give these little pep talks."

"He's clean now, isn't he?" Miles challenged. Lily shook her head and sighed.

"Yeah," she said slowly. They stayed there, guarding their laundry together, and when it was all finally finished they helped each other fold as they talked about pretty much nothing. When it was time for dinner they went down together, finding Max among the milling in-patients, and they had dinner together, the three of them, every day for the next week, and the week after that they added lunch, and midway through that week they started meeting each other in the hall every morning and walking to eat breakfast together.

They talked about everything during those meals, and then walked away feeling as though they had covered absolutely nothing at all. Not that it mattered, of course. They talked each other through breakdowns, enjoyed secret cigarettes in the laundry rooms together (at least until Lily's contraband stash had run out, and then they just did laundry).

They were known for always being together. If you wanted to find Lily, you'd have to find Miles and if you wanted to find Miles you'd have to find Max, and if you wanted to find Max you would have to find Lily. Even after all three of them had checked out, they still found places to meet each other and enjoy an afternoon eating and talking about everything and nothing.

Miles and Max came to be Lily's everything.

It killed her that she couldn't remember how it had all fallen apart.

* * *

><p>When Neal got Lily's voicemail the first time he chalked it up to her working and not being able to get to the phone, and he used the same assumption the second time. But when it was 11:30 at night and Lily still hadn't answered him he started to get a little nervous. Had she forgotten that he was going to call her? Had she gone home already, and was she already in bed? Or was she still in the shop?<p>

Mozzie came in on Neal's fourth attempt to call Lily. He went straight to the wine rack when he saw the phone stapled to his friend's ear and poured them both a glass. When we walked back over to the couch, Neal was leaving a message.

"Hey, Lil," he said after the mechanic beep. "It's Neal. Again. Just wondering what's up…Call me when you can. Bye."

Neal clicked the phone off and tossed it aside, thanking Mozzie when he turned around to take the glass from him. Mozzie sat down next to Neal, shaking his head.

"I sense things are not going well with the little Caffrey," he mused. Neal took a sip of wine before setting the glass down on a coaster on the coffee table.

"She's probably just busy," Neal reasoned. "Or sleeping. Normal people do that, right?"

"Sure," Mozzie shrugged. "That's the word on the street."

"She asked me to call her," Neal sighed. He scrubbed his face with his hands and raked his fingers through his hair before reaching for his glass again. Mozzie was watching him intently, sipping at his own wine periodically. "I shouldn't worry," Neal said, more to himself than to Mozzie.

"Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow," Mozzie hummed. Neal furrowed his brow.

"Who said that?" he asked.

"Some Swedish guy," Mozzie shrugged. Neal couldn't fight the urge to laugh. "But seriously, Neal. She's fine. If she's anything like you she got distracted by something and lost track of time working on it. Call her again tomorrow."

"You're right," Neal replied. Mozzie raised his eyebrows.

"When am I not?" he scoffed.

* * *

><p><strong>Song List!<strong>

****1. _Did It Take Long To Find Me?_ - _Moonshadow_, Cat Stevens  
>2. <em>Remember, My Friend - Shamandalie,<em> Sonata Arctica  
>3. <em>Say That Everything Is Over<em>_ - The __Thespian_, Alesana  
>4. <em>Try To Forgive, Teach me To Live - Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, <em>Phantom of the Opera  
>5. <em>Phone Tag You Know I Hate - Shake It, <em>Resdiscover  
>6. <em>Never Mind, Turn Back Time - Unknown <em>_Soldier_, Breaking Benjamin


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